


You Were Minding Your Own Business

by vodkaandlime



Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Love, M/M, Magic, Spells & Enchantments, Voodoo doll
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:35:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26821498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vodkaandlime/pseuds/vodkaandlime
Summary: When John finds a small doll in a dark corner of his new house he assumes it has been left behind by the previous owners and thinks nothing of it.Across town as things happen to the doll they alter the course of Roger's day.
Relationships: John Deacon/Roger Taylor
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	You Were Minding Your Own Business

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "No Better Place" by Fountains of Wayne

Freddie gives a whoop of delight and twirls in the empty room. “Isn’t it glorious?” he cries.

It is, Brian and John agree. Brian lifts Freddie and twirls around with him until they are both dizzy and staggering. 

John looks on and laughs feeling very slightly uneasy. Was it wise to agree to move in with a couple? Yet without his salary none of them would be able to afford this wonderful old house which brims with character.

And it is a large house. If Brian and Freddie require privacy they can have it.

000

It is growing dark as they bring in the last of the boxes from the van. Freddie flicks a light switch and – nothing happens.

And so they search first for a torch – Brian remembers that happily there is a torch in the glove compartment of the van – and then for the fuse box. John thinks back to when they viewed the house. He thinks the fuse box is in the cellar. 

A door at the back of the cupboard under the stairs opens onto steep stairs leading down into darkness. Freddie urges him to be careful.

John picks his way carefully down the stairs, shining the torch ahead of him, illuminating each step. There is a faint scent of roses which is unexpected. 

He steps on to a dusty creaking wooden floor. He shines the torch around and sees a wooden chest in one corner and above it a cupboard which he hopes houses the fuse box.

The cupboard does indeed house the fuse box and has a handy shelf on which a small tool box containing fuse wire amongst other items sits. John makes the repair and calls up the stairs asking Brian and Freddie to try the lights again. Brian flicks the switch that illuminates the basement and John blinks in the sudden light. He turns off the now redundant torch, and, curious, lifts the lid of the wooden chest that sits under the cupboard. 

He thinks it is empty at first.

Then, just as he is about to close the lid, he realises that the ledge on the left side of the box that the lid rests on has a hinged lid and forms a little compartment. He thinks that will be empty too so he is astonished when he lifts the lid and finds a small doll inside.

Freddie calls down to him asking if all is well. He replies that it is as he extracts the little doll from its hiding place and tucks it into the pocket of his jeans.

000

Across town Roger squeaks in surprise as his hood flaps up over his head. There is no wind and at first he suspects someone has crept up behind him and thrown his hood over his head as a joke. But there is no one near him. Frowning, he picks up his pace and hurries home. 

000

John switches the basement light off and closes the door. He fishes the tiny doll out of his pocket and holds it out to Freddie. “Look what I found.”

Freddie pronounces the doll sweet, plucking it from John’s hand and making it dance on the palm of his hand.

000

Roger experiences a sudden desire to dance. He skips along the pavement and twirls around a lamp-post. 

000

“What have you got there?” Brian wonders. They show him the doll. John tells them where he found it. “The previous owners must have left it behind,” Brian supposes.

The doll is made from cloth. It wears a little suit complete with a tiny tie. It has yellow wool hair and big blue eyes have been painted onto its small face as have a small nose and red lips.

Brian sits it on a table that – for now – is in the hall – they are still choosing the best positions for their possessions. The little cloth doll slumps forward as if tired. 

000

Roger suddenly feels exhausted. 

000

One of Freddie’s cats finds the little doll in the middle of the night and bats it off the table.

000

Roger falls out of bed and lands on the floor with a thump.

000

“How did you get there, little doll,” John murmurs the following morning when he sees the little doll on the floor. He picks the doll up and tucks it into the pocket of his robe then meanders into the kitchen. 

000

The duvet flips over Roger’s head. He barely notices, snuggled drowsily in its warm embrace. 

000

John removes his robe and flings it onto the bed. The doll falls out of the pocket and tumbles to the floor. John’s foot sends it spinning half under the bed as he makes his way to the bathroom.

000

Roger thumps out of bed again and slides across the floor. He gives a little surprised cry of pain.

000

The little doll remains unseen half under the bed. 

000

Roger wonders slightly sulkily if he has turned invisible. No one seems to notice him despite his brightly coloured clothes.

000

The cats are – in theory – not allowed in John’s room. The cats enter anyway.

One of them finds the small doll under the bed and scoops it out with a paw. The cats pounce on the doll sending it flying from one to the other as it is batted about.

The little doll skids out into the hall and a cat chases after it and bats it towards the stairs. It teeters on the top step for a moment and then tumbles. 

000

Roger feels he is being particularly badly jostled on the tube today as he makes his way home. He is completely sober – he wishes he wasn’t – but he feels he is staggering about too – ricocheting off annoyed strangers. Really, this journey is most unpleasant.

Feeling hemmed in – almost attacked – he finds he fights his way off the train at the next stop – not his stop – he is unsure where he is – all he knows is that he must escape. 

Anxious to escape from the crowds in the underground station he hurries up the stairs.

Just as he reaches the top a large man in a suit barges past him knocking him off balance. Roger totters for a moment on the top step – will he fall or won’t he – and then tumbles backwards.

000

“How did you get there?” John wonders, catching the little doll as it falls. “I see you slinking away Miss Delilah, did you do this?”

Delilah does not reply, of course. She stalks off with her tail in the air. 

000

Arms catch Roger, steadying him. A soft voice asks if he is all right.

Roger thinks he has twisted his ankle but says shakily that it could have been much worse and thanks his rescuer. His saviour is tall with a great deal of curly dark hair and kind eyes.

“Do you think you can walk?” the kind man asks. “I live nearby – why don’t you come with me and we can look at your ankle?”

Roger protests. He couldn’t. 

Cross commuters jostle them as they stand taking up too much space at the top of the stairs. Roger tries to walk normally and his right leg crumples as pain flares in his ankle. The kind man supports him again. “I’m afraid I shall have to insist you come with me,” the man tells him apologetically. 

It seems unlikely that the man is an axe-murderer or has any sinister intent and Roger does not feel he has much choice as he can barely walk. The underground station staff would help him, of course but...He tells the nice man it is very kind of him to provide so much assistance. The man looks embarrassed.

The man acts as a crutch for Roger and they hobble along a lovely leafy street to a very nice house which Roger expects to be divided into depressingly small flats or bedsits but is, in fact, still one house. “We only moved in yesterday,” the kind man says apologetically, “so I’m afraid everything is still a bit topsy-turvy. I’m Brian, by the way.”

“Roger,” Roger tells him, reassured at hearing that plural people have moved in to the house although, of course, they may all be sinister axe-murderers.

000

Brian has apparently adopted an injured stranger and both Freddie and Brian are looking expectantly at John who is evidently supposed to provide first aid for this random person. John gives Brian his sternest look and wonders aloud what he was thinking bringing this unknown element into their home?

Brian looks bashful and mumbles something about the man being hurt and seeming very nice, really. 

John sighs and hunts in a box for the first aid kit.

000

The injured stranger is very beautiful, sitting prettily on one of the high breakfast bar chairs in the kitchen. He smiles at John. “Thank you so much,” he says in a wonderfully raspy voice, “You’re all really very kind.”

John smiles back and clears his throat and suggests that he should have a look at Roger’s ankle. He sets the first aid box on the counter and flips the lid open.

“Is that a little doll?” Roger asks, spying the cloth doll which is now residing safely in John’s shirt pocket – its little woollen head sticking out the top.

John laughs and blushes a little. He explains where he found the doll and that they believe it must have been left behind by the previous owner. He removes the doll from his pocket to show Roger and feels an unaccountable and utterly overwhelming desire to kiss the little doll and raises it to his lips.

He is suddenly, unexpectedly kissing their visitor, who kisses him back passionately. 

They part and stare at each other, then smile. 

The little doll has vanished.


End file.
